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Yep, you definitely need one. Image by Getty Images via @daylife

When I was a college kid backpacking through Europe, my European fellow travelers were aghast that so few Americans held a passport, while passports were virtually de rigueur for citizens across the pond. "What are Americans afraid of?" one even asked me.

Times have changed. "More Americans have passports now than ever before," says Ken Chavez, spokesperson for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the US State Department. Over one-third of the population to be exact, or nearly 110 million out of 313 million Americans. That's more than double the number of US passports in circulation in 2000 (48 million) and around 15 times 1989’s 7 million. At that last number (under 3 percent of Americans), you can sort of understand why my European traveling buddies were scandalized.

And yet, one thing always struck me as false about their logic: whatever you think of the idea of American exceptionalism, America is exceptionally large. You could fit mainland France, plus Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg (total about 261,000 square miles) inside of Texas (269,000 square miles) and still have room for a passel of Alps. It takes nearly an hour longer to fly between New York and LA (about 5 hours) than between Lisbon and Helsinki (about 4:10), and the spaces in between are vast and varied. To paraphrase the (oft misquoted) line from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre: "Passports? We don’t need no stinkin' passports!"

We didn't even need them when traveling to Canada or Mexico - at least until recently - and that change accounts for much of the sudden rise. Americans used to be able to cross our northern or southern borders "as quickly as they might go to the corner grocery store," notes Alec Levenson, Research Scientist at the Center of Effective Organizations of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. An oral declaration of citizenship would suffice.

Then the 9/11 attacks happened, and concerns over terrorists entering by land prompted the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Implemented in 2007 for air travel and on sea and land borders in 2009, it required passports for US citizens entering from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

No surprise then, says the State Department's Chavez, that 2007 set the record for the number of US passports issued: 18.3 million (up from 7.3 million in 2000 and down to 12.6 million last year). "There is no sharp increase to my knowledge in people going elsewhere," other than Canada or Mexico, says Daniel Serwer, a former State Department official now with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Michael W. McCormick, Executive Director and COO of the Global Business Travel Association, adds "I would bet that a significant portion of the increase in passport issuance is due to business travelers." As companies seek ways to grow revenues, particularly out of the recent recession, they’ve looked overseas. "Business travel has led, and will continue lead, the growth in international travel," including well beyond America's immediate borders.

McCormick notes growing participation in trusted traveler programs like Global Entry, which speed up immigration and customs procedures stateside. The GBTA is also advocating an expansion of the visa waiver program, under which travelers to and from certain countries can avoid the expense and hassle of getting a visa for a short stay.

USC’s Levenson also points to demographics for the rise in passport holders: notably population (248 million Americans in the 1990 census to an estimated 313 million in 2011) and globalization. "We certainly have become no less of an international society than we were 30 years ago," he says. "People are more likely to be traveling abroad and working abroad. Passport issuance is the ultimate measure of those people."